Bailiwick of Conti
Situated on the eponymous island (49.179°N 2.107°W), Conti is a merchant city-state home to a community of industrious seafarers devoted to the advancement of commerce, the principles of good government and the preservation of True Freedom. |connectedresources = |bonusresources = }} Instrument of Government The Great Council is the unicameral legislature of the bailiwick. It consists of 100 members, referred to as Councillors, elected for a single five-year term. The Council of Ten is the executive governing body and collective Head of State of the bailiwick. Its members, elected from among the Great Council, are: *The Chancellor of Justice, Keeper of the Seals *The Controller-General of Finances *The Paymaster General *The Councillor of State for Commerce *The Councillor of State for War *The Councillor of State for Education *The Councillor of State for Research and Technology *The Councillor of State for Health *The Councillor of State for the Environment *The Councillor of State for Public Works The Bailiff assumes representative functions and is elected from among the Council of Ten, in rotation and for a one-year term. The States-General is a temporary legislative assembly, consisting of 300 elected deputies, vested with the exclusive authority to review and amend the Instrument of Government. Its promulgations (known as bulls) are irrevocable. The power to convoke the States-General is the sole prerogative of the Great Council. Conti’s legislation on citizenship is governed by the jus sanguinis principle. Citizenship is acquired at birth if either of the parents is a citizen of Conti. In effect, political participation and the exercise of citizenship rights in Conti’s overseas dominions are restricted to residents of Conti descent. Naturalisation can only be granted by a private act of the Great Council. Although Conti's institutional arrangement and form of government is representative in nature, the Instrument of Government makes provisions for the promotion of direct democracy. Citizens can challenge or propose legislation via referendum if a public petition is signed by a fifth of all registered voters. The right to vote is restricted to adults age 20 or over who fulfill the property qualification - defined as owning a property or ƒ100 in business capital. The Guildhall is the seat of government and the nerve centre of the administrative machinery of state. Chartered Companies The East India Company (EIC) and the West India Company (WIC) are mercantile companies established by an act of the Great Council on 5 June 2009 to further Conti's overseas commercial expansion. Both corporations possess a Charter of Privileges issued by the Great Council guaranteeing special trading rights with territories lying respectively east and west of the Prime Meridian. Conferred privileges include fiscal exemptions aimed at stimulating the growth of trade in raw commodities and securing continuing access to energy supplies, the right to maintain armies, wage war and sign treaties. All military, naval and diplomatic undertakings by the EIC and the WIC in the Indies are carried out in the name of the Great Council and the relevant company (EIC and WIC commanders swear a double oath of allegiance to the company and the Great Council). Ships operated or owned by the East India Company have the privilege to sail under the company’s house flag in lieu of Conti's merchant ensign. This privilege was extended on 14 August 2013 to permit its use on land in territories under the company's administration. On 27 August 2011, The East India Company obtained patents from the Council of Ten to undertake the colonisation of territories. The EIC is the only and supreme authority in its subject territories under the sovereign supervision of the Great Council. The West India Company secured similar arrangements on 20 September 2011. Piracy originating from the island of Bali (8.20°S 115.00°E) reached alarming levels by the second half of 2011, dangerously disrupting the company’s trade with the Indies and driving marine insurance rates to unsustainable highs. The EIC’s board of directors, having recently secured advantageous patents from the Council of Ten, seized on the opportunity to advance the company's interests decisively. The company dispatched a flotilla of four warships to the region in December 2011 (EICS Nemesis, EICS Spectre, EICS Trident and EICS Pandorica) to patrol Indonesian waters and protect company shipping with the Indies. The EIC’s expeditionary force swiftly gained control of north Bali’s main port, Buleleng, in the early days of 2012. A systematic campaign of land conquest ensued culminating in the removal of local potentates and the subjugation of the island to company rule. The sister-islands of Nusa Lembongan, Nusa Penida and Nusa Ceningan fell in quick succession. For the first time in its history the EIC now controls a permanent base for its long distance colonial commerce in South-East Asia. The EIC secured the cession of Singapore (1.30°N 103.80°E) and its adjacent island group from the Sultan of Johor on 27 November 2012 after an equally successful display of gunboat diplomacy. Continental Dominions The Brittany Company (BC) is a state-chartered, joint-stock monopoly organisation formed by an act of the Great Council on 14 June 2009 following the purchase of the Dukedom of Brittany. The company's Charter of Privileges reflects the bailiwick’s reluctance to allocate excessive fiscal resources to support its dependencies by effectively privatising the administration of the duchy. The act facilitates the transfer of government functions to the Brittany Company for the duration of its charter with an explicit mandate to enact legislation, exercise police powers and levy taxes (the BC administers its own tax system within guidelines laid down by the Council of Ten), thus conferring upon the company quasi-regal powers nominally attributed to the Great Council. The BC's charter is subject to review and renewal after 12 years. The States of Brittany are the highest judicial body in the ducal lands. The States are composed of delegates from the urban merchant patriciate and hereditary members of the landed nobility. By virtue of the extensive legislative and executive authority conferred by its charter the Brittany Company has displaced the States and the traditional corporate elite as the prime source of political power in Brittany. For the States, which had initially expected from the Great Council the continuation of their ancient privileges and liberties, the most contentious issue was the preservation of their extensive fiscal powers. In particular, the States insisted that monetary levies could not be raised without their prior consent. The question of institutional reform, in substance the issue of self-administration and taxation remains a point of contention between the Breton polity and the Great Council. Having been deprived of their customary rights of consultation and deliberation with the advent of company rule, the States' powers are confined to the exercise of their judicial prerogatives. The States of Brittany only retain limited oversight of taxation in time of war. Situated at the mouth of the Rance Estuary on the northern coast of Brittany, the Free City of Saint-Malo (48.38°N 2.00°W) is Conti's major commercial gateway to its mainland dominions administered by the Brittany Company. Owing to St Malo's prominence as the bailiwick's chief emporium on the continent, the Great Council declared the city a corpus separatum under the provisions of the Charter of Liberties of the Free City of Saint-Malo conceded on 26 July 2009. The charter institutes a council of 12 elected members, collectively known as the Corporation of Saint-Malo, entrusted with the government of the city under the leadership of the Provost of the Merchants. The document confers upon the city all powers of self-governance and privileges associated to free city status and confines Conti’s involvement in municipal government to prerogatives pertaining to defence and foreign affairs. Instrument of War The Naval Service and the office of Captain-General of the Sea were established by the Naval Service Act on 8 October 2009. The Captain-General of the Sea, appointed for a two-and-half-year term by the Great Council, is responsible for overseeing the administration of the navy under the nominal ministry of the Councilor of State for War. In practice, the office enjoys pre-eminence in all naval policy matters through the direct administration of military shipyards, drydocks, maintenance bases and the Naval War College (founded on 25 January 2014). The Naval Service operates 3 military ports in the home waters: Conti, Brest (48.23°N 4.29°W) and Lorient (47.45°N 3.22°W). On 21 January 2014 the Naval Service and the East India Company established a joint naval station at the foot of the Table Mountain, north of the Cape of Good Hope. The Cape (33.55°S 18.25°E) is Conti’s only naval facility in the southern hemisphere. By March 2014 the Naval Service had extended its territorial control to the Cape's immediate hinterland, pressed by the imperative to protect Conti settlers who had begun illegally colonising a strip of land abutting the westernmost ridge of the great South African escarpment and stretching northwards to the Saint Helena Bay. The EIC was soon offered to purchase and administer the new territory, known as the Cape Settlement, but declined to extend its involvement beyond the joint control of the naval station and the posting of a small garrison of company troops. The naval branch of the military is thus paradoxically the largest private landowner in territories under Conti overlordship (with the exception of chartered companies). The first census undertaken on 7 May 2014 recorded 7,062 citizens of Conti residing in the Cape Settlement. The New Model Army Act adopted by the Great Council on 9 June 2010 created the nucleus of Conti’s first standing army, composed of professional soldiers organised into permanent regiments. The act put an end to the bailiwick’s over-reliance on civic militia (known as the Territorial Service) and mercenary companies for its defence and reformed the long-standing practice of raising temporary armies of paid soldiers in wartime. The Territorial Service, retained as an auxiliary unit of the New Model Army, is entrusted to support civic authorities in preserving domestic order. Responsibility for military commissions and promotions is assigned to the Council of Ten. However the appointment of the New Model Army's Captain-General of the Land Forces is made jointly by the Council of Ten and the Great Council. A committee of Great Council 'deputies in the field' (usually constituted of 3 councillors) accompany the Captain-General on campaign and can participate in taking major military decisions. The Air Service is the military aviation branch of the New Model Army. The Military Intelligence Service, created by an act of the Great Council on 23 November 2013, amalgamates the previously fragmented intelligence, counter-intelligence and operational capabilities of Conti's military branches into a single centralised organisational and command structure. The funding of the Ducal Regiment of Brittany, is a joint-responsibility of the Brittany Company and the States of Brittany. In order to mitigate the effect of rising fiscal pressure, the BC and the States can raise funds necessary to finance wartime military expenditures by jointly issuing interest-yielding bonds. Technology Procurement Fund The Technology Procurement Act enacted on 1 September 2010 established the Technology Procurement Fund with the mission to stimulate foreign direct investment involving technology transfer and facilitate the acquisition of technology by Conti-based enterprises. The fund is the beneficiary of an annual public contribution of ƒ216 million. Its Chief Executive reports to the Councillor of State for Research and Technology. The Letter of Command is the document of reference for technology deals operated or facilitated by the Technology Procurement Fund. The letter addressed to the fund's Chief Executive is published annually in January by the Councillor of State for Research and Technology in compliance with the Technology Procurement Act. The document sets out stringent procurement objectives for the calendar year. The 2011 letter, the first of its kind, published on 15 January set a target of 500 technology units per month amounting to a total of 6000 technology units for the entirety of the year, an amount superior to the volume of technology acquired by Conti by the end of 2010. The Technology Procurement Revision Act of 12 August 2013 modified the fund’s governing statutes to address the rising cost of technology procurement resulting from intensifying competition and a dwindling supply pool. As funding requirements for 2013 doubled to ƒ432 million – twice the fund’s annual state subsidy, the Council of Ten sought to attract private investment to surmount the rising financial challenges and close the funding gap. The revised legislation paved the way for the part-privatisation of the fund and advanced it's transformation into a fully-fledged commercial entity contracted with the management of public assets. Under the new arrangement, the bailiwick sold a 49.9% stake in the fund to private investors thus retaining a controlling majority stake. The second innovation of the act is the creation of Conti's sovereign wealth fund under the management of the Technology Procurement Fund: the TechFund+. The act prescribes that any excess liquidity created by a government budget surplus or proceeds from the sale of state assets be transferred to the TechFund+. Cityscape of Conti